Jakarta – A petition signed by more than 100 legislators calling on the House of Representatives to investigate the government's plan to import rice from Vietnam has suffered a blow.

The House's consultative committee failed Monday to get a quorum to discuss whether the request could be taken to a House plenary session for approval.

The meeting was adjourned until Jan. 19 because only 19 of the committee's 55 members showed up. The move to investigate the imports would have succeeded if half the committee's members had attended.

The legislators who backed the petition had wanted to hold an emergency meeting to stop the shipment of 110,000 tons of rice imported from Vietnam later this month.

Hasto Kristianto, a lawmaker from the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the high absenteeism followed a meeting Sunday between Vice President Jusuf Kalla and leaders of the House factions to discuss the issue.